In the years leading to your final release in 2010, your struggle for democracy was ours. Your defiant activism and unimaginable sacrifices profoundly inspired us, and like the rest of the world, we held you as a beacon of hope for Burma and for our human family. Along with other fellow laureates, we worked tirelessly and diligently for your personal freedom.

It is thus with deep shock, sadness and alarm that we witness your indifference to the cruelty inflicted upon the Rohingya minority today. Nearly 270,000 people have sought refuge into neighbouring Bangladesh these past two weeks, and a recent UN report has highlighted an all too familiar story: extrajudicial executions; enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention; rape, including gang rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Arson attacks are being launched on civilians and entire villages burnt, leading to what the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calls “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. This is an assault on our humanity as a whole.

As Nobel Laureates working under the banner of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, we have supported the groundbreaking work and courage of women activists inside and along the borders of Burma for a decade. Their tireless activism consistently highlights abuses committed by the Burmese military. Just last November the Women’s League of Burma denounced the ferocious militarism that plagues Burma: “[…] we are gravely concerned for the security of women in conflict areas. It is urgently needed for the government to end impunity for state-sponsored sexual violence, and bring the military under civilian control”.

As a fellow Nobel Laureate, a worldwide icon for the universal freedom and human rights, and now State Counsellor and de-facto Prime Minister of Burma, you have a personal and moral responsibility to uphold and defend the rights of your citizens.

How many Rohingya have to die; how many Rohingya women will be raped; how many communities will be razed before you raise your voice in defense of those who have no voice? Your silence is not in line with the vision of “democracy” for your country that you outlined to us, and for which we all supported you over the years.

As women committed to peace, as your sisters and fellow Laureates, we urge you to take a firm stand on this unfolding crisis: recognize Rohingyas as citizens with full rights and take all expedited measures possible to end the persecution of innocent civilians by the Myanmar authorities.

In the words of fellow Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.” The time is now for you to stand for the rights of Rohingya people, with the same vigour and conviction so many around the world stood for yours.

The heart of the problem is to find a reasonable policy balance between the phobia, either it is actually believed or indoctrinated to believe, that the Rohingya or to use the government-military accepted label Bangali would overwhelm the rest of the 50 million population with Islamization, and logical, pragmatic undertaking. This phobia and hatred laced thinking is hardly a logical approach that should be entertained.

In a nutshell, reviewing the 1982 citizenship law to be in tune with the international norms would be the way to go, if Burma or Myanmar is to become a respectable, fully fledged member of the international community again. After all, this citizenship law is written by military dictatorship regime and not with the consent of the people and the organizations that represent them. This is the hard fact.

While debates and arguments on when and how the Rohingya or Bengali have entered the country could be carried out academically at a leisurely pace, the pressing problem is on how to handle the present problem of a million population, which Burma and Bangladesh don't recognize as their citizens. A humane solution based on universal human rights is the only way to resolve this problematic. And the UN and international community are ready to help overcome this humanitarian catastrophe.

The book would also be in tune with the recent open letter to Aung San Suu Kyi from the concerned exiled group of individuals, who coined the phrase that Burma might be “sleep-walking into the abyss of racial hatred and religious bigotry”.

If this description of the present situation is real the more it will be impossible to build a bridge between ethnic and civil nationalism, or should we say, a mixture of harmonious cohabitation through the fusion of commonly accepted national identity - which is still in the making, ongoing and debating among the stakeholders - and civic identity that is anchored in democratic principles and adherence of universal human rights, rather than ethnically based one only.

But it is all the more important to ponder on awareness-building if we are to turn hatred into peaceful cohabitation, if not out of pure love.

Peaceful co-existence, accommodation and cohabitation are only possible, when the majority of the society could clean itself from ethnocentrism and racism, in words and deeds. So long as we are tolerating double-standard or having exception to apply the said values either to one ethnicity or a group of people, racism and ethnocentrism sets in. And then peaceful cohabitation becomes an impossible dream.

In a nutshell, awareness-building that respect humanity and democratic principles are the key to resolve the problems.

I’m sure I’m not the first one to say there is no
school higher than life and we all are its students. Be humble and be diligent,
and you’ll never be disappointed.

On 4-7 September, Col Htoo Htoo Lay, Advisor to the
Peace Process Steering Team (PPST), the 8 person leading body of the 8 EAOs
that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2015, met to finalize
its peace strategy before meeting the government’s National Reconciliation and
Peace Center/Peace Commission (NRPC/PC) to work out a concerted plan for the
next Union Peace Conference 21st Century Panglong (UPC 21CP).

Htoo Htoo Lay’s Plan was to divide the representatives
into 3 groups PPST, UPDJC and JMC, each in one room to discuss its strategy (I
shrink every time I hear the word ‘strategy’, but to Htoo Htoo Lay, it’s his
life breath) for two days, 4-5 September. Then all of them would meet on 6-7
September to wrap up.

There’s a saying “Plans are made of glass.” So let’s
see whether his ambitious one just blew
up or became hard as diamond.

Day One. Monday, 4 September 2017

The greatest victory is one which
requires no battles.

Attributed to Sun Zi (BC 551-467), author of The
Art of War

After
the opening session, all of us go to the room assigned to each group. Coming
from the journalist background, I’m naturally in the PPST room where the
resource person, who has expressly requested anonymity, will be delivering a
presentation on Strategic Communication.

Strategic Communication,
according to the resource person (I’m avoiding using him or her
not to give him/her away), is not just about public relations (PR) which is
essentially verbal, but more about non-verbal ones (about where you and your
counterpart are sitting in a meeting room, for example) which produces public
impressions more telling even than what you are saying.

Here are some of what I have gathered from him/her:

·Strategy, to put it simple, is what you
do

Policy, in contrast, is
how you do it

·Four factors to consider:

1.Audience – Who do you want to
influence? (NLD government, US government, the Tatmadaw? Others?)

2.Your message – You have a lot of
information. The key is to coordinate them. Talking points must be agreed beforehand.

3.The media ―This also includes social
media, meetings and local communities, not just the press

4.The messenger ―Who says it is
important. Different messanger gives different effects

·Needs

1.Strategic Communications Team

2.Spokespersons – Use each spokesperson
for each audience. Each must be well trained in order to be fluent in the topic
concerned and how to deliver the message. Social media spokespersons should
preferably be young.

3.Schedule and share ―(Here I miss
totally what he/she says about it)

·Strategic Communication may well be the
best weapon the EAOs have. Right now other stakeholders (the government and the
Tatmadaw) have everything: radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, websites,
Facebooks, etc. You have nothing

·Asking a (certain Western) government
to fund the peace process is not enough. It is already a member of the Joint
Peace Fund (JPF). You have to have a specific Christmaslist,
like:

1.Support for IDPs/refugees

2.Support for ethnic peace center in
Thailand

3.Equal treatment of the EAO leaders. For
example, if you can train the Myanmar Army, why can’t you train us too?

·Protocol is the relationship between
people. Are they equal? Examples:

1.Invitation – who sends it? They or you,
or together?

2.How do you enter the meeting room?

a.Together

b.One after the other

c.You coming well ahead waiting for
him/her to enter?

3.Sitting plan

4.Order of speaking

5.Control of agenda, etc

(“At the May UPC 21 CP, it
could be said that the EAO leaders were ‘hijacked by the government’s
protocol.’ The State Counselor and the Commander in Chief were ‘rock stars’ and
you were just their ‘admirers.’ This cannot happen again.”)

·Here are how you should and should not sit

At the end of the day, somebody says:
“Now, all these seem great. But who’s going to propose it? Who’s going to bell
the cat?”

There is no answer, just smiles. That
of course doesn’t mean the EAOs are short of cat-bellers. Or full of them
either.

Day Two. Tuesday, 5 September 2017

It
is easy to love your friend, but sometimes the hardest lesson to learn is to
love your enemy.

(Attributed to) Sun Zi (BC 551-BC367)

One of the two issues that had deadlocked the UPC 21
CP #3 (officially #2) was in the security sector. (The other is the
non-secession issue.)

The long and the short of it was that while the EAOs were
calling for Security Sector Reform (SSR), the Tatmadaw had been adamant on the
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) stance.

And the PPST wants to know how things are and how to
bring them to a win-win solution.

Fortunately, Safer World, a UK based organization, has
just published Security Integration in Myanmar: Past experiences and future
visions in May. And the authors: Kim Joliffe, John Bainbridge and Saw Lin
Chel are happy to share what they know.

On paper, at least, there is a consensus:

·A federal system of government

·To embark on an SSR/DDR negotiation

But when it comes to a future vision, differences
become manifest:

Tatmadaw

NLD

EAOs

·Strong, capable and modern patriotic
Tatmadaw

·DDR is a necessary precursor to
Tatmadaw returning to barracks

·A standard army (“which doesn’t mean
anything in the international military circles”)

·No mention of professional conduct,
ethnic makeup or human rights (The Tatmadaw is already “inclusive of all
ethnic groups, including 4,500 officers from ethnic minority background”)

·General indications that it could
envisage EAOs taking on law enforcement responsibilities or becoming reserve
military forces, like Border Guard Forces (BGFs) and People’s Militia Forces
(PMFs) (“roles and rights still poorly defined”)

·Current security sector is not in
need of significant reform

·A Tatmadaw respected and relied upon
by the people

·To bring the Tatmadaw under executive
branch

·To make the police independent (“Even
China separates police for the military”)

·Positions on EAO integration unclear,
despite rhetorical support for Federal Armed Forces (Meeting the UNFC in
2013, she stated that “there must be a federal army if there is going to be a
federal state”, according to Myanmar Times, 1 October 2013)

·Carefully avoided security issues
since taking office

·A federal union Tatmadaw

·A complete overhaul of current
structures as pre-requisite to DDR or integration

·Democratic oversight

·Ethnically proportional recruitment,
including officers

·Power sharing through state
governments and/or rotating command between ethnicities (“It is not clear if
this (second) approach has been tried elsewhere in the world”)

·State-level police, and state-level
defense forces

·Exact vision of how such an armed
forces would be structured is not yet clear

The Tatmadaw is still seen as Bamar and Buddhist
dominated, says the paper. “Writing in 2009, the scholar Maung Aung Myoe noted
that non-Buddhists or husbands of non-Buddhists were unlikely to rise above the
rank of major.

In a 2017 paper, veteran Myanmar scholar Robert Taylor
states that the Tatmadaw is diverse and relatively representative among the
lower ranks but Bamar-heavy in the officer classes.”

The authors’ conclusion is that “A political solution
will be inextricable from security arrangements.” “In the spirit of federalism,
there would be numerous options for providing states and regions with equal
influence over defense affairs.”

“Another option would be for the NDSC (National
Defense and Security Council) to be reformed to include representatives from
each state or regions security forces and/or civilian governments.” Mr Joliffe
notes here that Germany has a council representing states to oversee the
military.

On the question of unit-level incorporation or segregation,
“history has shown that cases of violence following such integration are rare,
while maintaining segregated forces has often led to conflict further down the
line, as illustrated by the July 2016 outbreak of violence between segregated
units in South Sudan.”

Burma also has had similar experiences after
Independence, according to the authors.

What the Tatmadaw wants is for A+B to become A, which
to the EAOs is unacceptable. The EAOs, likewise cannot call for A+B to become
B.What may be successfully negotiated therefore is for A+B to become C.
Naturally, we cannot expect A and B to totally dismantle themselves right away,
to become C. So an agreed series of steps must also be negotiated.

We have another session with the Strategic
Communication expert in the afternoon. But to my disappointment, I’m called
away to a meeting with the faculty from the University of Songkla coming from the
Deep South.. They are interested in Hopeland’s peace process, especially the
JMC.

Another meeting with them is agreed, probably in
Pattani.

Day Three. Wednesday, 6 September 2017

The greatest bankruptcy in life is hopelessness.

Attributed to the Buddha

Today, all the three groups: PPST, UNDJC and JMC
return to a combined meeting.

The
UPDJC, led by coordinator Comrade Myo Win, reports that several options had
been discussed two days earlier on how to smooth out the problems facing the
organizers of the next UPC 21 CP. Which I’m not supposed to report here.
Suffice to say that the EAOs UPDJC has been taking into consideration the pros
and cons of their proposed options.

The JMC, led by Dr Suikhar, then takes the floor. He
says, despite being seen as the less problematic committee, it is not without
one. “What to monitor, and how, are still unclear.”

One big obstacle is the terminology in the NCA’s
Chapter 3 (Ceasefire Related Matters) and Chapter 4 (Maintaining and
Strengthening Ceasefire) which each side interprets differently. Examples:

·Reinforcement (Does it include BGFs and
PMFs?)

·Civilian protection (Do we agree to include
the people called Bengalis too?)

·Demarcation (We planned for two
workshops, one in Pa-an, and the other in Namzang, but the Tatmadaw failed to
send its representatives)

Col Khun Okker, commenting on the presentations,
concurs:

“Following the drafting of the NCA, a paper explaining
the terminology was also jointly prepared, to be published together with the
NCA. However, somehow it did not materialize. Many problems that arose later
originated in our failure to publish it.”

Padoh Kwe Htoo Win, who was assigned to meet the Peace
Commission, following the PPST meeting on 9-10 August, is the next speaker.

According to him, he and his delegation met the PC on
25 August, when he reported that the PPST is of the opinion that there is a
great need for the two sides to meet to discuss the following subjects:

·NCA implementation

·SSR/DDR

·Joint Pyidaungsu Accord implementation

·Framework for Political Dialogic (FPD)
review

·The holding of national political
dialogues (ND)

·Joint Coordination Board (JCB) for Peace
Funding

·The ceremony for the second anniversary
of the signing of the NCA on 15 October

·Visa issue for EAO members

·And that all these would need the
holding of the JICM (Joint Implementation and Coordination Meeting) to sanction
them

“Since Daw Suu took office,” comments comrade Than
Khe, “only 1 JICM has been held. Some say two but I disagree. Because the first
one failed to bring the JICM back to life. Only the second one that was held on
23 April this year with the participation by top government leaders such as the
State Counselor, Deputy CinC Soe Win and Attorney General Tun Tun Oo, we were
able to make meaningful decisions.”

He proposes a JICM during the month of September,
taking into account the State Counselor’s planned attendance of the UN General
Assembly later in the month (which is to be cancelled later.)

Delay may be dangerous,” he says, “as our country is
gradually falling into an abyss. Sooner or later, traveling abroad is likely to
become a scary adventure for Myanmar citizens.”

Day Four. Thursday, 7 September 2017

Who wishes to fight must first count
the cost.

Attributed
to Sun Zi (BC 551-BC 467)

Many items are discussed and decision was reached on
many of them, but not on the elephant in the room. And you know what I mean.

But since writing about it amounts to killing the
goose, I beg to stop here with quotes from the Buddha and Martin Luther King Jr:

In this world, hate has never yet dispelled
hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and eternal.

Whether the UWSA-led Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) would also be a military alliance, beyond its political bargaining bloc position, is an open question everyone is most interested.

For now, the UWSA might try to avoid direct involvement with the Tatmadaw and the latter is also, more or less, might be in the same position.

But AA commander-in-chief Brig-Gen Tun Myat Naing recently said that armed resistance is the continuation of political struggle. And seen from this point of view, politics is a bloodless activity while armed struggle is a movement which involve blood-letting or bloodshed. Thus, it is hard to differentiate between political and military alliance, as they are connected.